Toyota was more or less forced to start building cars in the US in the early eighties and did so in an unlikely joint venture with General Motors. GM was very interested in learning how Toyota build their cars. Bottom line: the Toyota Production System or TPS is mostly a way of management thinking that is completely different from the way most companies in the world manage people.
It is based on trusting employees, enforcing employees by training them, allowing employees to report errors as soon as possible, viewing the production proces as a manager with your own senses, understanding the production proces, truly following a vision and more.
Toyota actually does what most managers learn in management schools but don’t practice. Most managers outside Toyota want to be a boss and not a leader. But Toyota wants leaders that are being followed by employees based on intrinsic values.
Interestingly, the Toyota Production System is heavily influenced by the Training Within Industry program developed by the US Army during WWII and taught in post-war Japan by the US. And statistician W. Edwards Demming who showed Japan what true PDCA looks like.
Although an initial success, the production plant ultimately stopped operating. It was purchased by Tesla, and AFAIK, as of today Teslas are being build in the same plant in Fremont. But I highly doubt TPS is used to build Teslas.
The best way to get a quick understanding I think is to listen to episode 561 (2015) of This American Life about NUMMI in California:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
Toyota was more or less forced to start building cars in the US in the early eighties and did so in an unlikely joint venture with General Motors. GM was very interested in learning how Toyota build their cars. Bottom line: the Toyota Production System or TPS is mostly a way of management thinking that is completely different from the way most companies in the world manage people.
It is based on trusting employees, enforcing employees by training them, allowing employees to report errors as soon as possible, viewing the production proces as a manager with your own senses, understanding the production proces, truly following a vision and more.
Toyota actually does what most managers learn in management schools but don’t practice. Most managers outside Toyota want to be a boss and not a leader. But Toyota wants leaders that are being followed by employees based on intrinsic values.
Interestingly, the Toyota Production System is heavily influenced by the Training Within Industry program developed by the US Army during WWII and taught in post-war Japan by the US. And statistician W. Edwards Demming who showed Japan what true PDCA looks like.
Although an initial success, the production plant ultimately stopped operating. It was purchased by Tesla, and AFAIK, as of today Teslas are being build in the same plant in Fremont. But I highly doubt TPS is used to build Teslas.